Pedagogy in Further Education and Vocational Teacher Education

Example 4 from research – Willemse et al., (2008) and Example 4a from research Compton et al. (2019)

Willemse et al. (2008) carried out a mixed methods study ‘of the actual … education practices of 54 teacher educators within one institution’ (ibid: 445)

On considering the results of a previous exploratory study, and a scoping of literature, they were led to ‘assume that preparing student teachers … apparently depends more on the efforts of individual teacher educators than it does on any collectively designed curriculum and that the process appears to be largely implicit and unplanned’ (ibid: 446).

When participating in the research, some teacher educators explained how they were searching ’for ‘golden moments’, which they defined as moments when a teacher educator could explain some information or theory (or express a value) in response to a question or problem raised by the student teachers’ (456)

Whilst recognising the presence and value of modelling and golden moments, this study expressed doubts about the degree to which TEds’ practices and the structures of TEd programmes embedded such pedagogies to the conscious degree that they should. To further develop and research this area was considered a high priority.

Example 4a from research Compton et al. (2019) This research surveyed the membership of the “Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN) in the UK about their ideas of the key characteristics of a professional teacher educator, and their results (p. 6) commented on how “Boyd (2014: 67) discusses the importance of explicit modelling for teacher educators, that is to say stepping out of the teacher education session and explicitly reflecting by ‘thinking aloud’ about the design and facilitation of the session. Loughran and Berry (2005: 200) affirm the depth of skill required for modelling, ‘Laying bare one's own pedagogical thoughts and actions for critique and doing so to help student–teachers “see into practice”— all practice, not just the “good things we do”’. The importance of modelling came through in our findings as the suggestion that teacher educators are people who, as specialists in their field, provide nuanced insights into praxis, both modelling proven strategies for success, and offering clear written and verbal (oral) advice when conducting focussed observations. But this goes further: teacher educators can explain their practice in detail, and help others to find ways to develop their own.”